Artist Bio
Rock'n'roll can get you into some hairy situations over 20 years. Most bands don’t make it half that far.They're silenced by the toll of the road, the vagaries of fashion, personal differences, lost ideals or an empty tank of inspiration. Then there's Shihad. What doesn't kill them only amps them up, makes them louder, clearer, more united and determined to write THE song that will make the world raise its arms and roar in a single note of perfect harmony.
Beautiful Machine is the seventh studio album from New Zealand's premier road warriors. Months before release, it had 45,000 Big Day Out punters bouncing from stage to stalls in Auckland, where its heart-stopping first single, "One Will Hear The Other", has put their past airplay in the shade.
"We're all quietly confident this is the most focused record since The General Electric," says singer Jon Toogood, referring to the band's landmark rock radio arrival of '99. "The feeling in the band is way more positive after the last few years of touring 'cause it had been so cathartic. It was like, right, I wanna have fun with melody again. I wanna have fun with grooves. I wanna write great songs that really connect and move people." Beautiful Machine is loaded with them, from the exhilarating uplift of "One Will Hear The Other" to the atmospheric harmony of "Hard to Please"; from the glam rock thump of "Rule The World" to the heartbreaking tenderness of "Waiting Around For God". "We knew we wanted to do something different. That's the common drive amongst the band. Never repeat yourself. If you can manage that after 20 years then you're really onto something," Jon says.
Incredibly, the band's chemistry has never sounded more potent. Tom Larkin again proves himself one of the finest rock drummers of his generation. Jon's singing has never been more moving, Phil Knight's guitar counterpoints never more lyrical and Karl Kippenberger's melodic bass work brought a new dimension to the writing process, says Jon.
"What I'm really pleased with is that we've managed to find a new way around music," he says. "So what we do now is keep our heads down, learn to play the songs really well, then go out and do what we do. Whatever happens then, happens. But like I said, we're quietly confident that it's a f---ing great record!"
BREAKING NEWS FROM THE BAND:
‘Cold Heart’, the first taste from our new album is available for streaming exclusively off the Homegrown website
We’ll be headlining Homegrown on Saturday 20th February in Wellington, tickets are still available so make sure you head to http://www.ticketek.co.nz before it sells out!
But before then we’re very excited to be supporting AC/DC on their mammoth ‘Black Ice’ tour around Wellington and Auckland later this month. We are honoured to be playing these shows. There are a few tickets still available, head to http://www.ticketek.co.nz for tickets to Wellington shows and to http://www.ticketmaster.co.nz for Auckland, you don’t want to miss this.
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